


There's a reason not to want this (but I forgot)

by illuminatedcities



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: D/s undertones, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pining, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3933187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illuminatedcities/pseuds/illuminatedcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So you're a friend of Harold's, then?" Grace asks, a few intersections later, and John nearly laughs hysterically at that, because barely three hours ago, he was pressing Harold against the wall of a secret government facility, licking into his mouth with shuddering desperation. </p><p>John forces a smile and a nod. </p><p>“I’m glad that you’re looking out for him,” Grace says.</p><p>“You don’t know me,” John says, and it comes out more accusatory than intended.</p><p>Grace traces the path of a raindrop on the glass with her index finger.</p><p>“Harold does,” she says. “That’s good enough for me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a reason not to want this (but I forgot)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Reed for being my brain twin and always encouraging my writing, and to Daisy for the lovely, helpful comments!

The massive steel door slams shut behind John and locks with a metallic screech.

“Harold?” John asks.

Harold looks up from where he is buried up to his elbows in red and green and blue wires, gutting some kind of huge computer tower.

“I don’t want to sound alarming,” John says.

Harold rolls his eyes at him.

“Well, it’s too late for that now, Mr. Reese.”

John can feel the corner of his mouth twitch.

The burner phone is still in his pocket, the text message he sent only minutes old.

John has always been good at calculating outcomes, even if he isn’t as good at chess as Harold is.

It doesn’t take a mastermind to tell that there is no way that they are both going to make it out of there, but John is going to make damn sure that at least Harold is.

“I guess the doors have an automatic lock.”

“What?” Harold asks, his voice rising to a high pitch on the last sound. “Is there a way to --“

“Not unless you can manage to pry this locked door open with your hands,” John says grimly, inspecting the massive steel doors.

The lights above them flicker.

“I don’t want to sound alarming,” Harold says in a flat, toneless voice, looking down at something in the mess of wires. “But I managed to figured out what the contingency plan of this facility is.”

John turns around to him.

“It’s a bomb, John,” Harold says, and John can feel the way the ground is falling away beneath him, the nightmare-sensation of taking a step that isn’t there at all.

 

\--

 

“We need to --“, John starts, but Harold is already ahead of him, saying “Yes, yes” distractedly while peeling away the outer layers of the bomb with steady hands.

John can see the red digits of the timer slowly counting down beneath Harold’s working hands.

He has expected to die at least a dozen different times over the years, but he can’t believe that the moment when his luck is finally running out has to be with Harold right next to him, caught in the crossfire.

“Maybe there is a way to open the doors manually,” John says, looking around for something that will serve as a tool.

“The entire facility operates on electrical security,” Harold says, following a blue wire with his fingers. “Unless we get to the server room to disable the emergency protocol --“

He trails off, but John already knows what he is going to say: There’s no way out for them anymore.

“John,” Harold says, his knees wobbling when he tries to get up to his feet.

John crosses the distance between them instinctively to take Harold’s arm and help him up.

“I don’t think I can disarm it in time,” Harold says, like he’s sorry, like this is his fault, eyes wide behind his glasses.

“That’s okay,” John says, still gripping his arm.

Harold makes an offended noise at that and opens his mouth, probably to give John a lecture about his recurring death wish, but instead John leans in and kisses him.

Harold’s hands are curling into the lapels of his jacket, and after a second of shock Harold’s mouth opens for him and they are kissing for real, deep and desperate, Harold leaning into John with his whole body.

John’s hand comes up to rest at the nape of Harold’s neck, careful of the limited range of motion that Harold’s spine allows, and he feels like Harold is the only thing that keeps him connected to the moment, the only part where his feet are still touching the ground.  
Even then John knows that he is living on borrowed time, that he makes Harold cheat on the ghost that is still living in the back of his mind, but with Harold's lips pressed against his and sparks exploding at the edges of his vision, he just doesn't care at all.

They part for air, and Harold looks at him with an odd expression on his face.

John turns away. He has a variety of ways this moment plays out all laid out in his head, from “I’m sorry, John, I just don’t feel this way about you” to a single, brief shake of Harold’s head, the way he’d withdraw into himself and never come back out.

“John,” Harold says, just that one syllable.

John closes his eyes to wait for the sound of Harold’s voice or the flash of light, whichever comes first, except suddenly there is a loud noise like the air whooshing out of an airlock, and the click-click-click of the door unlocking and swinging wide open behind them.

John grabs Harold by the sleeve, ignoring his protests, and drags him down the corridor, all the way through the deserted main floor and out into the light.

 

\--

 

“It didn’t explode,” Harold says, turning bodily on the passenger seat to look out of the back window.

“You sound disappointed,” John says.

The phone in his pocket is heavy like an anchor.

“I’m not disappointed to have avoided certain death. I just didn’t manage to disengage the trigger mechanism, and I didn’t do anything about the doors, either --“

“The Machine,” John says, suddenly realizing. “Is it possible that it overrode the security protocol?”

Harold turns to him with an astonished face.

“It might have been able to access the trigger mechanism of the bomb remotely,” he says.

Harold frowns, apparently troubled by the possibility.

“If the Machine is getting involved in these kinds of situations, the situation might be even more dire than we previously realized,” Harold says.

His cheeks are flushed, and John’s eyes are drawn to his mouth, the ghost of touch against his own lips still lingering there. John makes himself look straight ahead.

“If that is actually what happened, then the Machine saved our lives, Harold. I know you don’t like the thought that what you’ve built may be making its own decisions by now, but it’s much too late to change anything about that.”

Harold fiddles with the buttons on the radio, switching the stations around through the noise of white static.

“Mr. Reese, we should probably talk about the events of today,” Harold says, pausing when a classical station comes on, some kind of complicated opera piece.

“We didn’t die today.” John says.

His teeth hurt where he is clenching his jaw shut. John starts reciting the alphabet backwards in his head, distracting himself from thinking about how Harold’s mouth opened up under his, how soft his lips were, how his hands came up on his back to pull John closer still.

John isn’t a stranger to the effects of high adrenaline situations, the shaky, euphoric feeling of having escaped your own death. The bruises on his arms were always vivid and deep purple every time he and Kara met a close call, and she kissed him like he was the only thing that mattered in her universe. It didn’t mean that she would care, though, once the fight or flight chemicals had been washed out of her bloodstream.

John won’t make a fool out of himself by thinking that Harold’s response was anything else than an anxiety attack brought on by his brain chemistry.

“John --“

“We’ll be home soon,” John says, his tone clipped.

John sees Harold looking at him the entire ride home in his peripheral vision, but he doesn’t say a thing.

 

\--

 

The call doesn’t come until they are back at the library.

John stares at the phone in his hand like it has materialized out of thin air for a moment before pressing the button to answer it.

“Harold?” A female voice says on the other end. “Please tell me this is you.”

Across the room Harold has been sitting down on the couch, easing his collar open.

“Is everything alright, Mr. Reese?”

“I need to go,” John says, the phone still clutched in his hand with a desperate grip.

“Hello?” The voice in his ear says. “Hello?”

\--

She waits outside of her building, wearing a green cardigan that is too thin for the cold weather, a black leather bag slung over her shoulder.

“I remember you,” Grace says, when he gets closer. "I'm Grace."

She sounds sweet and lovely and not damaged at all.

“I mean, you know that already, I just -- I wanted to introduce myself again. Properly, this time. We've met before, but I think we probably left some things unsaid, then.”

John nods weakly.

“So, Harold is not -- He’s alive, yes?” Grace asks. “I just. I never really thought that he was dead, not in the way people say they don’t when they’re grieving, you know? When they say I can’t believe that person died. I always felt like… maybe there was a mix up, maybe he had lost his memory like on one of those dumb lifetime movies.”

She holds on to the strap of her bag, her fingers tight around the leather.

“I guess I just couldn’t stand the thought that he wouldn’t come back to me.”

There is a moment when John thinks that he could still lie, could tell her that someone made a cruel joke, but Grace looks at him all raw and honest, and he knows that there is only one thing that he can say.

“Harold is alive,” John says. “And he should tell you everything else in person.”

Grace presses her lips together, nodding.

“I got this text message,” she says, taking her phone out of her bag. “It said something about Harold, and there was an address, too. I don’t understand what’s happening at all.”

“We should get in the car,” John says, a little desperate. “Harold will explain everything when we get there.”

She falls into step beside him.

“Did he send me the text message?”

John grits his teeth.

“No,” he says.

 

\--

 

John stares out of the windshield. The first drops of rain are falling against the glass, blurring the streets outside.

“It was a plan for a worst case scenario,” he says, feeling so bone-deep tired that he would like to curl up and sleep for days. “In case something happened that would leave Harold behind on his own. Someone didn’t want him to spend the rest of his life alone, so they left a message that would lead you to him.”

Grace looks at him.

“That someone, did they - Did they die? Is that why I got the message?”

John swallows.

“Not today,” he says.

Grace folds her hands in her lap.

“That person must really care about Harold, to do something like that.”

John wonders if he can manage to stop his own heart if he concentrates enough.

 

\--

 

"So you're a friend of Harold's, then?" Grace asks, a few intersections later, and John nearly laughs hysterically at that, because barely three hours ago, he was pressing Harold against the wall of a secret government facility, licking into his mouth with shuddering desperation.

John forces a smile and a nod.

“I’m glad that you’re looking out for him,” Grace says.

“You don’t know me,” John says, and it comes out more accusatory than intended.

Grace traces the path of a raindrop on the glass with her index finger.

“Harold does,” she says. “That’s good enough for me.”

He takes her to the library, because he doesn’t have any idea what else to do. She sits in the passenger seat, her hands in her lap, and stares out of the windshield. John has put the radio on, the music blaring softly in the background. He wonders if it bothers her and moves to turn it off.

“No, please,” Grace says, the first words she has spoken since John picked her up from her apartment. “I like that song.”

They keep driving through the rain.

 

\--

When they walk through the foyer Grace looks down at the books that are strewn across the room, face down on the ground, their spines bent, pages covered with dust.

John wants to say something about how they always wanted to clean up the place a little, but realizes that it probably doesn’t matter to her, and back then they had more important problems than housekeeping anyway.

John knows that he should have talked to Harold, should have given him time to prepare, but there is a little voice inside his head that tells him that the library might have been empty if he had tried to warn him: Harold has a habit of turning invisible in times of trouble.

Grace follows his lead, hands clenched in front of her. They’re close enough that John can hear Harold’s typing, the low hum of the servers, the sound of Bear’s paws on the floor coming towards them when Grace grabs his arm.

“Is there --“, she starts, and her voice sounds thin and scared and she has to swallow once before she can go on, “Is there something about him that will surprise me?”

John can feel the warmth of her hand even through the fabric of his sleeve.

“There was an accident,” John says.

Grace’s eyes widen at that. She doesn’t let go of his arm.

“He isn’t -- he’s in pain, sometimes, and he is probably not moving the way he was before,” John says, carefully.

The grip on his arm eases a little.

“Thanks for sending that message,” Grace says, and walks into the library.

 

\--

 

John doesn’t follow, but he can see Harold at the table, looking up from his monitors. There’s surprise on his face, then confusion, and then something that makes John’s throat close up just to look at.

“Grace,” he says, standing up to walk towards her and then stopping himself, as if he can’t make himself cross the distance between them.

As if he can’t make himself reveal that he is limping, John realizes with a cold feeling in his gut, and it makes him hurt for Harold so much he has to lean against the side of the door.

Grace’s steps don’t falter, she just walks right up to Harold and throws her arms around his neck, her red hair a stark contrast against his dark suit.

Harold stands awkwardly with his arms still outstretched for a second before he manages to put his arms around her, his palms touching her hair, her back.

Harold’s hands move carefully, and John has seen him handle delicate computer parts, wires attached to bombs ready to go off, and yet has never seen him so gentle in his touch.

John turns away, whistling through his teeth to get Bear’s attention and clip the leash to his collar. In the other room, Harold looks up at the sound, his gaze searching the hallway, but John is already gone.

 

\--

 

“I was at your funeral,” Grace says when she lets him go.

The skin on her cheeks and throat is flushed red and she is blinking rapidly, but she is not crying. She can see the treacherous shine in Harold’s eyes, though, his composure crumbling.

She is surprised at how it feels, how much different she has expected him to be, and how everything about him seems the same to her.

“There was a service and everything.”

“I am so -- I never wanted to lie to you, it was just --“ Harold starts, except Grace gives a huff of disbelief and shakes her head at him.

“Don’t do that to me, not again. If John is any indication, you have lied to me about every aspect of your life, so don’t you dare start doing that again.”

“John?” Harold asks, wonderingly.

“He sent me a message. Apparently he thought that he would die and wanted to do something nice for you first, or something, so he -- Harold?”

Harold looks like he is going to be sick. Grace, despite the anger bubbling like hot water inside her chest, reaches out and puts a hand on his arm.

“I have made a thorough mess of my life, it would seem,” Harold says.

She has to laugh at that despite herself.

“Well, you were a bit too good to be true, actually, I should have known that something was up.”

Harold raises his eyebrows at that, as if he finds the implication that he had been too perfect a boyfriend offensive.

There is a part of Grace that wants to stop thinking about it, about the day she went looking for him in-between the beds of dying people, the flowers she held in her hands at the graveyard.

She would love to forget about the endless crying at night, curled around her pillow in the darkness. But as much as she wants to forgive him, as much as she knows he needs her to, she isn’t going to lie to him.

“I am angry at you, Harold. I don’t know why you did what you did, and while I’m sure you had a good reason for it in your mind, you put me through some of the worst times of my life, and I don’t think I can just get over that. I don’t want to, actually.”

Harold’s face is a grimace of pain, but he nods.

“Of course. I don’t expect absolution, Grace. I know what I’ve done is unforgivable. Please believe me that I did it because I wanted to keep you safe. I thought that it was the only way to do so.”

Grace wants to smooth the worried lines from his face, wants to reach out and fold him up inside herself and make him look less miserable, but she is a woman of resolve, and if she wants to forgive him at some point, she will have to work through this first:

All the anger and disappointment and the bitter feeling of loss inside herself.

She wants to forgive him, she realizes. She wants to find a way to forgive him more than anything else.

“Tell me the story, and don’t leave anything out,” Grace says, and pulls up a chair next to his.

Harold sits back down, his spine straight. He turns his whole body towards her instead of just his head, and Grace can feel her fingernails digging into the soft flesh of her palm.

Oh Harold, what happened to you?

“I built a machine,” Harold begins, and doesn’t stop talking for a long time.

 

\--

 

She doesn’t go home with him that night, or the five nights after that. But she ends up in front of his door anyway, almost one week after he wasn’t dead anymore, and when he opens the door she tumbles right into his arms.

 

\--

"Harold," she says, pulling him closer, her mouth against his cheek, his throat.

He moves differently now, his back rigidly straight and something about his posture changed, too: Sharp at the edges where he used to be soft and yielding.

"I like the glasses," she says, taking them off his nose and folding them neatly on the bedside table, and Harold just runs his hands over her arms, all the way up to her shoulders, like he can't believe that she's real.

She crawls on top of him and leans down for a kiss, except Harold winces and Grace puts her weight on her right arm instead, moving herself to the side and away from him.

Harold catches her free hand in his, his thumb running over the back of her hand reassuringly.

"It's fine," he says, even though she can see the tension in his face, "It's just that I -- am faced with some limitations, now," he says, his mouth curling in a self-deprecating smile.

He looks apologetic, shameful, even, and she kisses his temple, clasps their fingers together.

Grace resists the temptation to tell him that she's sorry.

Harold has been as vague as possible about the nature of his injuries, and barely discussed the topic at all. She remembers the way he would get up at five thirty in the morning to go running in the park, and she can only imagine how trapped he must have felt in a body that didn't work the way he was used to.

"Just tell me how," she says, wanting to make that expression leave his face more than she has wanted anything in a long time, "Tell me what you need."

She lets him arrange himself in his preferred position, a pillow behind his head and lying slightly on his side instead of flat on his back, and curls up next to him. Grace wonders if she reminds him of a time when he could walk without limping, the way they would have sex on the narrow couch in her living room, all elbows and knees and soft chuckling until they had found a comfortable position.

"I need you," Harold says, not looking at her, answering her question from before. "I am sorry that you had to suffer so much because of me."

There is scar tissue in his neck where she curls her fingers against his skin.

"You were trying to keep me safe," Grace says, running her thumb over the flawed skin. "You did a really bad job at how you approached it, though" she adds, making a face at him.

It's weird, how only a few days before she had been certain that she could never entirely let go of her anger, that she would be too resentful or too hurt to make it work.

Now that she looks at him, she knows that she can.

"I am not sorry that you have come into my life, Harold, and I never will be," Grace says.

He is avoiding her gaze, always trying for the exit route, and she puts her hand under his chin, just the barest hint of pressure, and he looks up at her again.

"I'm so sorry you were alone in all of this."

She can still read his expressions, like a language that she learned as a child and still remembers. The face he makes right now means that he’s battling for control.

"To be fair, I didn't let you be a part of it. I took that decision from you."

She smiles softly.

"Well, you're an idiot, what can I say."

His smile is pained, but real, and she lets herself sink against him, seal his lips with her own.

It’s easy, then, to let herself get lost in it: The rhythm of his hands on her skin, finding the sweet spots of pleasure all over her body until she’s shuddering in his arms, her face against his shoulder, tears of gratitude spilling from her eyes.

Grace had thought that she had lost this, the easy companionship between them, his soft, secretive smile, the way they just fit together as if they belong.

She comes with her hands on his shoulders, her mouth on his lips, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

\--

John tries to avoid the library, except there’s no way he possibly can, not without compromising the mission.

He spends as much as time out on the streets, doing surveillance or taking long walks around the neighborhood, the collar of his coat turned up against the rain.

John reads Harold’s happiness in the lines around his eyes when he smiles, the sound of his voice: Like somebody turned on a light bulb inside of him.

Grace sits in the chair next to Harold or curled up on the couch, always reading a book or drawing something on her large sketchpad. She smells like pencil shavings and her drawing charcoal, and something sweet, flowery - a perfume, like she never had to make herself disappear before, every smell out of the ordinary a potential way to die.

(She hasn’t, John reminds himself, she is not like him. She never learned how to take a blow without flinching.)

John brings them cinnamon buns and cupcakes in large paper boxes, green tea for Harold and chocolate mocha for Grace, and he nods and listens and smiles at just the right moments.

Harold looks at him, sometimes, puzzled, in that way he does when he’s trying to solve a particularly challenging piece of code, but John only strips his weapon, cleans the parts meticulously, puts it back together with a slide of his hand.

\--

“You’re very good at this,” Grace says, once, nodding to where John is reassembling a rifle on the table.

“I needed to be,” John answers, keeping his gaze down. “I had to learn how to be good at it.”

“I never shot a gun in my life. Is it difficult?”

He considers it.

“Pulling a trigger is simple,” John says, showing her the release mechanism.

Grace comes closer to the table to get a better view. She’s not afraid, John thinks, walking up to someone she knows to be a killer handling a weapon. She still comes closer.

“Taking a life is the difficult part.”

Grace nods at that, her lips pressed together in a sincere expression.

“I am sorry you had to learn how to be good at it,” Grace says.

John doesn’t know what to say to that.

\--

It’s not true, of course: Taking a life is simple, easy as breathing, the blink of an eye. It’s what scared him the most, being with Kara -- how easily he did it, like a reflex. Like he was born for it.  
The truth is that he minded the consequences, the death of good people, the loss of others.

Killing is easy.

Surviving after is the difficult part.

If Harold gets to be with someone who will never understand that distinction? That seems like a good thing in John’s book.

\--

John comes home to an empty apartment and doesn’t turn on the lights. He walks to the closet where he keeps his weapons and puts them away in the half-darkness of the moonlight forming large squares of light on the polished wooden floor.  
He showers, copper swirling in circles down the drain from the cuts on his face. His shoulder is sore and he turns up the water as hot as it will go, enjoying the way his skin is burning with it, turning red and angry beneath the spray of water.  
John gets out of the shower, dries off and changes into boxers and a shirt before climbing into bed. He doesn’t feel like getting food for himself, and Bear is with Grace and Harold, so he has no reason to leave the apartment and might as well sleep.  
He tries to think of nothing, the deep kind of silence that is just black behind his eyelids, but his thoughts flicker back to the library.

John thinks of Grace with her pale skin and her skirts folded around her on the couch. He can see how Harold fell for her immediately: Her soft-looking hair, her gentle smile, something about her eyes that made him think that she knew more than she let on, a kind of mischievous expression.

She is pretty and takes everything in stride and it would probably feel really good to run his hands through her hair, John thinks, slowly getting hard in his boxers.  
There is a thrill to it, thinking about Grace like that -- Harold’s girlfriend, his mind supplies helpfully --, as if she was smiling at him that way. It makes him shudder delightfully, thinking that she is not his, that he allows himself the indulgence only in the privacy of his mind.

The truth is: John can’t have what he wants anyway, he might as well let himself imagine for a moment.

He turns on his back, his head against the pillow, and slides his hand beneath the covers to curl a hand around the growing erection in his underwear, sighing a little at the pressure of his palm.

She would be beautiful, he’s sure, lying spread out on his bed with her red hair fanned around her head, her delicate fingers on his skin. John imagines her laugh, that little, delighted sound she makes in the back of her throat, and how he would try to coax other sounds out of her, her hands in his hair, urging him on.

John slips his hand underneath the elastic of his boxers and touches himself in earnest, slowly rocking his hips up against his fist, setting a leisurely rhythm.

He tries to get a clear picture of Grace in his mind, except thinking of her naturally leads to thinking about Harold, which is a completely different kind of indulgence:  
Harold, with his secrets and his bespoke suits always perfect to the last seam, with his courtesy and sarcasm and the way his fingers fly over the keyboard.

John groans, because once he has opened that door he finds it difficult to stop, and as appealing as Grace’s pale skin and lovely lips had looked only a moment ago, now all he can think about is the hollow of Harold’s throat, those intelligent eyes darkening with pleasure, what Harold would say to him.

John’s hand moves faster, his need for release more urgent now, his breath coming in short huffs.

Harold would keep talking to him, even as John was stripping him, jacket and vest and tie and every button on his dress shirt, and, oh, the things he could do with that clever mouth of his.

John is shuddering on his bed, the bed in the apartment Harold gave him, the tip of his cock slick with precome.

There is no trace of guilt anymore, just raw, intense pleasure at the images in his mind, Harold pulling him close to kiss him, his hands all over him, taking him apart.

“Mr. Reese,” Harold would say, in the same infliction as usual, and there is something so profoundly erotic about the idea that John shakes with it, spilling all over his hand.

He lies in his bed and stares at the ceiling, after, still panting, before going back to the bathroom to clean himself up.

This is the worst part:

When he climbs back into his bed and the sheets are cold, and the thrilling shudder of the endorphins has worn off.

It’s not real, it never is, and tomorrow he will go back to the library and smile at Grace and smile at Harold, and return to his empty apartment at night.

John curls up on his side and turns off the light.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

\--

When John comes back to the library one evening, Bear runs into him while chasing a green rubber ball, paws skittering on the floor.

“Sorry, John!” Grace calls from inside the room, running after Bear and retrieving the ball from under a shelf.

Bear leans against John’s legs, tail wagging, nosing at his hand until John kneels down to pet him.

“I thought I could play with him a little so he doesn’t eat any more of Harold’s books,” Grace says, laughing.

“What was it this time?” John asks.

He walks over to the desk and takes off his jacket, folding it neatly over the arm of a chair.

Grace is wearing a soft-looking, dark blue sweater and matching earrings, and she has spread a blanket over the side of the couch where she must have been reading before, a bookmark dangling between the pages.

“Tender Is The Night,” Grace says and pulls a face. “First Edition.”

“He has a penchant for Fitzgerald,” John says, sitting down in a chair next to the couch.

“Oh, god,” Grace says, alarmed, and before John knows what’s happening, she is kneeling next to him, unbuttoning the first three buttons on his shirt.

When he looks down his left arm, he can see a fresh blood stain on the white fabric all the way from his shoulder down to the elbow, probably from a cut one of the guys at the bar gave him with a broken bottle.

“It’s nothing,” John says, “Looks much worse than it is.”

“It looks like you have a flesh wound,” Grace says incredulously, and gets up to grab the first aid-kit from one of the shelves.

“You don’t have to--“ John starts, except she’s already back, rummaging around in the box.

“You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, and I’m in a relationship with Harold Mart- … Finch. Harold Finch.”

Grace lets her hands sink down into her lap, still clutching a bottle of disinfectant.

She presses her lips together.

John wants to say something, but he knows better than to touch what has happened between the two of them, so he just stays quiet.

“Sometimes it feels like nothing has happened at all, like it has always been this way, and then I remember...” She trails off.

John reaches out instinctively, covers her hand with his. Grace looks up at him, surprised.

The thing is that John can see why Harold fell for her, her reassuring presence, her laughter and kindness and spirit, and he likes her, he really does.

“How long have you been in love with him?” Grace asks suddenly, unbearably kind, and John flinches away from her.

He is so utterly surprised by the question that he opens his mouth before considering if he actually should.

“Three years, two months and twelve days,” John says, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.

Grace just nods at that. She finds a pair of latex gloves and some cotton swabs, drenches the wadding in disinfectant and starts to clean his wound.

John concentrates on the sting in his shoulder and tries to ignore the panic that is rising up inside of him.

What in the world was he thinking?

“It doesn’t need stitches, I don’t think,” Grace says, squinting at his shoulder. “You didn’t tell Harold that, did you.”

John swallows hard.

“No, I didn’t,” he finally says.

She puts small stripes of antiseptic gauze over the cut and a larger, white band-aid on top and starts to sort everything back into the first-aid box.

“I never wanted to take him away from you, you know,” Grace says.

Before John can reply to that, Bear whines and runs toward the door where Harold is standing in his hat and coat, staring wide-eyed and panicked at John.

“Mr. Reese, what happened?” Harold asks, sounding genuinely alarmed, and when John looks down at the table, he can see why:

The swabs stained with red on the table, Grace kneeling in front of him with her gloves still on, his bloody shirt.

“It’s really nothing,” John says.

“He keeps saying that, I don’t know why,” Grace says, but her smile is amused.

John feels a wave of warmth and affection towards her, the way nothing her life throws at her seems to make her lose her balance. He pulls his shirt back over his shoulder.

“Thanks, Grace,” John says.

Grace pulls of her gloves and turns to Harold.

“You are both oblivious idiots,” she says.

Harold blinks at her.

“You should have seen your face when you thought John was hurt,” Grace tells him, sounding utterly frustrated, before turning around to John.

“And you,” she continues, “you don’t even realize that --“ She stops herself.

John has an impulse to run that must telegraph quite clearly, because Bear is at his side, ears turned up, his entire body tense. John reaches out to smooth his ears back down, put a reassuring hand in his neck.

“Harold, John is coming home with us tonight,” Grace finally says.

Grace and Harold have one of those weird staring-contests couples have, where an obvious issue is settled with the nod of a head.

Bear whines and leans into John, clearly at a loss.

Grace turns to John.

“You want to, right?” She asks, as if she’s settling a mere formality.

“I-- Yes,” John says, dazed, because Yes, of course, he never thought --

“John, I didn’t realize you would want -- You never brought this up, I did not think --“ Harold closes his mouth as if he’s frustrated at the lack of sense he’s making. “Of course we’d like to take you home with us.”

John looks at him, then at Grace, who just smiles, kind and knowing.

He wonders if he is having a hallucination, or a very strange dream.

“Harold, I don’t think I understand what you’re saying,” John says.

"You're coming home with us," Harold says, patiently, like he has explained to John the meaning of pi once and John is still, bizarrely, not getting it.

John is too shell-shocked to protest, so he lets them help him into his coat, and lead him down the stairs, Grace and Harold keeping up a pleasant backdrop of conversation all the way down the street. John is walking between them with a dazed look, his head gloriously empty and light.

\--

Once he's in the door John realizes that he's never been in Harold's apartment.

He's not even sure if it's the home of one of Harold's identities or a private residence, some kind of safe house, maybe.

John feels a painful jab in his guts at the thought that it might be a place that Harold has chosen for the two of them, Grace and him. Their place.

It's a loft with large windows and walls lined with bookshelves, two comfortable looking sofas in the corner, an armchair by the window. The kitchen is nice, grey and black tile with marble countertops.

There's a right turn obscured by the corner of a bookshelf that must lead to the bedroom and bathroom, and John is at a loss what to do.

"Knock yourself out," Grace says, gesturing to the rooms. “Do your… spy thing, if you want.”

He feels himself smile despite his tension.

“My spy thing?” John asks.

She grins at him.

“Harold gave me a little crash course what to expect. John Reese 101, if you will. And it’s not like I haven’t seen you at work,” she adds.

Grace had been listening in on some of their work in the last few weeks, oddly at peace with the things they did. Maybe once your fiancée had returned from the dead and you had been kidnapped by a bunch of scary looking people, your idea of odd was bound to shift just a bit.

John tries to imagine them in this place together: A lazy Sunday morning, the two of them sharing the newspaper over coffee and toast and scrambled eggs, sipping orange juice over the crossword section, light streaming in through the windows.

He walks around, touring the perimeter, checking the exit routes before making his way back to the kitchen.

"Would you like a drink?" Harold asks.

John shakes his head no, although the thought of alcohol to calm his nerves is tempting.

Grace is barefoot, her cardigan folded over a chair. It occurs to John with a sudden flare of panic that Harold is nervous, otherwise he would sit down, ease the strain on his back, probably take off his coat at least.

There's a box of Harold's favorite Sencha sitting on top of the counter and a little glass jar that holds sugar cubes, and John stares at it for a while, feeling utterly lost.

"I don't really drink much," John says.

The anymore he didn't include hovers between them for a moment, bitter.

Grace pulls out one of the chairs next to her, beckons him to come over. John does, helpless to do anything else.

"Mr. Reese," Harold starts, and Grace gives him an exasperated You must be kidding me right now face.

Harold clears his throat.

“John,” he says.

John has a brief moment of disorientation because the only times Harold calls him that is when he's bleeding profusely, strapped to a bomb vest, or about to be killed in a blaze of gunfire.

"It has come to my attention that your behavior these last few weeks has been strange. Stranger than usual," he adds, petulantly, when John's eyebrows climb high at that.

John is pretty sure that “it has come to my attention” means that Grace has been giving him a hard time about it, but he knows better than to say that out loud.

"It's just been a stressful month, Harold, but I'm touched by your concern," John drawls, trying for light.

Harold gives him a stern look, so apparently he will have none of it.

“I would never ask you to do something that I know might cause you discomfort or make you miserable,” Harold says.

I know, John wants to say, I know I know.

“But I would like you to tell me the truth about what you want. What you need, John.”

What I need I can’t have, John thinks, except then Harold reaches out to him, the fingertips of his hand barely brushing John’s wrist, and says:

“Tell me.”

“I kissed you because I think it didn’t matter anyway and it was the only thing I wanted to do,” John says, horrified at himself.

Harold moves his hand so his fingers lie across John’s pulse point.

"This is a problem, isn't it?" Grace asks. She smiles at him, open and real, and, when he doesn't answer, she adds: "Harold and me?"

John freezes. He expects her to touch him - a reassuring hand on his arm, maybe, but Grace stays completely still, like she's trying not to block his exit route.

Harold has turned his whole body to them, his eyes are clear but dark. John looks away.

"I don't know what you mean," John says, roughly.

He never should have agreed to this.

“It was you, wasn’t it,” Grace says.

John does prime numbers, this time, because it’s better than thinking of Grace pitying him, thinking about how he loves the man that’s hers. 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31…

“You sent me the message,” she says, and her gaze is impossibly soft, as if she doesn’t hate him at all, even though he just admitted to kissing Harold, to wanting him.

John wets his lips. 37 41 43. 4… 47?

Grace just sits there patiently, not bothered by his silence, and Harold could probably outwait a stone. That’s not how he can get out of this mess, John realizes.

“I didn’t want to meddle, I just --,” John starts, but he doesn’t even know what to say:

He couldn’t bear the thought of Harold, alone in the library, speaking to nobody, trying to work the numbers on his own.

He had imagined Grace walking through the entrance hall, pass all those lost, damaged books, and taking Harold home with her. Starting over.

“You didn’t want Harold to be alone,” Grace says.

John can’t look at Harold’s face, he is too scared of what he might find there.

"We never made a conscious decision to exclude you, John," Harold says.

The sentence rings like a gunshot in John's ears, because it sounds like - surely Harold must know that he sounds like --

"We are not exactly usual people," Grace says, amused. "You weren't expecting us to have the usual kind of relationship, were you?"

John is suddenly lightheaded, panic rising up in his chest like ice water.

“I would never ask for anything like this,” he finally manages.

Harold’s skin against his is just the slightest bit of touch, but it feels like John is holding his hand against an electrical fence.

“Why would you ever think that I could say no to you,” Harold says wonderingly.

"You'll have to spell this out for me," John says, through gritted teeth, because he cannot be wrong on this - he needs - he needs-

Harold inhales sharply, eyes wide. He looks flushed, the tips of his ears pink.

John wants to push him up against the counter, kiss him the way that made Harold melt against him, warm and real.

This time, he wants even more: John wants to lean in and lick at Grace's throat, let her climb into his lap, his hands splayed on her back and brush back her hair with his fingers.

"You need an order," Harold says, sounding like he just realized, like he didn’t actually know, before.

His voice is all wrong now, hoarse and breathless, and Grace looks at him and swallows, hard, before turning back. Maddeningly, she still doesn't touch him.

"John. Come to bed with us, “ Harold says, and John can only nod, looking at both of them, terrified and thrilled at the same time.

Grace pushes her chair back with a squeak and grabs Harold by the sleeve and John by the fabric of his shirt.

She moves slow enough that Harold can keep up with them, all the way into the bedroom and their ridiculously large bed.

John stands, his breath coming in short gasps and his heart beating wildly, as Harold sits down on the bed to untie his shoelaces, slowly, methodically.

He blinks up at them, looking owlish and a little confused.

"By all means, go ahead."

Before John even has a chance to process that, Grace leans in, close enough that he can feel her breath on his face, her hands coming up to rest on his hips, assured and steady.

She tips her head and leans in to kiss him, and something sharp and painful constricts in John's chest. He can hear Harold giving a little noise that is probably agreement, and then Grace pulls and actually topples him off balance.

He lands next to her on the bed, the breath knocked out of him.

Grace helps him to take off his jacket while he unbuttons her blouse, running his hands over every bit of exposed skin. She shimmies out of her skirt and pulls him on top of her, and then Harold is beside them but John barely notices, caught up in the task of making Grace feel good, of actually doing something.

John is eager and thorough, helping her undress and stroking and kissing her, pulling her flush against him until he can feel the way her hips are shifting against his groin, the insistent pull of her hands on the back of his shirt.

It isn’t until John is on his back with her straddling him, that she seems to realize that John is still dressed except for his jacket, and also painfully hard in his pants.

He reaches up to touch her again, not even making an effort to take something in return, and she catches his wrists, stilling them.

"John," Grace says, as gently as she can, "you don't have to prove your worth to me, don't you know?"

Something must show on his expression because she leans in to kiss the doubt from his slack mouth, to say into his ear: "You're allowed to enjoy yourself, too."

John looks at Harold instinctively, and Harold draws his brows together, gets that little line on his forehead that indicates concern. John wants to reach over and smooth it away with his thumb.

“We both want you here, John,” Harold says, reaching for his hand.

Harold’s eyes are wide behind his glasses, and John wonders if he’s scared, if he’s nervous, if he is running the calculations in his head and coming up with probabilities, the likelihood of loss.

“We both want you,” Harold says, and having his full attention is like a million watt flashlight shining right into his face.

“Harold,” John manages, when the words won’t come, clinging to the syllables like a lifeline.

It’s strange, all the times he had allowed himself to imagine this, how the Harold in his thoughts had always been sure, completely unaffected: Kissing and stripping him with brisk efficiency, taking him over the back of a couch, tying him to a headboard, asking him to go down on his knees in his polite tone.

The real Harold, however, doesn’t know what to do with his hands, lets them wander over John’s hips and up to his ribcage, thumbs stroking idle circles into the skin. This Harold looks flushed when they part for air, breathing heavily, pupils dilated and lips swollen and red.

“You can have whatever you want, John,” Harold says, and John melts against him, kissing him hungrily, and his hands on John are a guidance, a light in John’s darkness.

“You didn’t have to stop for my sake,” Grace says, but she uses the moment of distraction to shove at John’s shoulders and get him onto his back.

John falls onto the mattress with an ‘Oomph’ sound.

"You'll be the death of me," John mumbles, his lips tingling as he blinks dazedly up at the ceiling, and Harold huffs a laugh and says, dryly: "You have absolutely no idea.”

When John leans up on his elbow, he can see the two of them together: Grace carefully unbuttoning Harold's vest, easing open the knot on his tie and pulling it off, until he is just in his dress shirt, then proceeding to undo the buttons.  
Harold kisses her, making her hands lose focus, and she leans back until he ends up on top of her, resting next to John.

John can't help but wonder if this is a position that minimizes Harold's pain: His back straight, Grace taking his weight, her hands stroking soothingly over his arms.

"Hello, John," Harold says and kisses him again.

Harold is a skilled kisser, patient and thorough, and they only break apart when Grace tugs at his shirtsleeves and says: "Off. Now.”

Harold smiles down at her and sits up so he can shed his shirt and undershirt, while Grace settles back to watch John undress.

He puts on a show to make her laugh, losing the fabric inch by inch until she bats his hands away and helps the process along, and John says, "Pushy," only to feel her run the knuckles of her right hand along the bulge in his trousers, making his breath catch.

"Don't get on my bad side," Grace says, against his throat, teeth against his skin.

"I believe Mr. Reese enjoys dangerous situations," Harold observes, discarding his clothes next to the bed, and John has a visceral reaction to the name, goose bumps exploding all over his skin.

Grace grins. "Do you like it when he calls you that in bed?" she asks, as if for future reference, and god, just the thought that this isn't a one-off, that they might be doing this again--

"I will keep that in mind," Harold says smoothly, and John has to try and not come right then and there.

Instead, he pulls Harold close again for more kissing, pulling back when Grace guides him onto his back between them, spread out on the smooth sheets.

Harold seems content to look, still talking to him, "John, you must know how long I have thought about this - how long I have been -" but John doesn't want to talk, now that he knows they will let him stay.

“Where do you want me? What do you want me to do?” John asks, breathless, eager, his gaze searching Harold’s.

Harold looks thrown for a second, then he recovers, straightening his spine a little.

“Come here,” he says, and John crawls over to him.

Harold pushes a hand into his hair and tips his head back to kiss John’s throat.

“Would you enjoy getting her off?” Harold asks, glancing at Grace, whose cheeks are a lovely shade of pink.

He sounds as if the thought just occurred to him, and John’s eyes widen, he’s nearly dizzy with arousal.

“Yes,” he admits, meeting Harold’s eyes, and Grace draws in a breath and says: “God, me, too,” and John has to smile at her, half hidden behind a hand in front of his mouth.

Harold takes his hand and gently pulls it away from his face.

“You only ever smile if you can half-hide it,” Harold says, but there’s no reproof in it.

Grace leans in to kiss the scars on John’s breastbone, his shoulder, and says: "Please, Harold, can we keep him?" with that smug, satisfied expression.

John wants her so much that he can't stand it.

“Take off her underwear,” Harold says, and suddenly John is calm and certain, glad that he has been given a task.

He draws Grace down to him, kissing her deep and filthy, before flipping her over with a surprised "Oh", sliding down her body until he can remove her panties, Grace gasping above him.

"Use your hands, first," Harold instructs evenly, and Grace makes a choked-off sound, grabbing Harold's hand on the sheets like she needs something to hold on to.

John lets his hands wander over her stomach, her thighs, caressing the insides of her knees until she's squirming beneath him. He strokes his thumb over her clit and she shudders and curses while he strokes her, slow and light, circling and withdrawing, her legs quivering with anticipation.

"Nobody likes a tease, John," Grace groans, shooting Harold an annoyed look.

Harold, though vaguely disheveled and flushed, looks unimpressed.

"Good things come to those who wait," he says, leaning down to kiss along her clavicles, down to her breasts, her hands coming up to rest on his shoulders, curl at the nape of his neck.

“I hate you,” Grace says, a little breathless, and John can see that Harold is smiling against her skin.

John draws his thumb over the hood of her clit and Grace makes a low sound in her throat and pushes up against his hand.

"You may use your mouth on her now, John," Harold says.

John moves down to put his tongue against her immediately and Grace makes a long, whimpering sound.

John licks into her, flicking the tip of his tongue against her clit and making her gasp, dimly aware that Harold has been sitting up to watch him.

Grace's breath is gratifyingly short, and John can feel the muscles in her thighs tensing and clenching rhythmically.

She is making soft little sounds of pleasure beneath him and he leans down to suck her clit into his mouth. Grace arches her back, legs quivering and then she's gone, shaking through her orgasm beneath him, utterly undone.  
Harold eases her through it, touching her arms, kissing her sweat-slick temple.

John wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sits back on his heels, almost painfully hard by now. Grace manages to get her eyes open and makes an impatient gesture.

"Jesus, why are you still all the way over there, get up here," she complains, sitting up and kissing him, and it’s only the way she strokes down from his belly to his hips that makes him aware of his own arousal again, the throbbing in his cock.

"Do we need lube or do you want-" Grace asks John, cupping him through his boxers, and John makes a desperate sound low in his throat.

She strokes him through the fabric and asks: "Do you want Harold to fuck you?" and if he wasn't already in love with her, with both of them, he would be now.

"Yes," John breathes, and then two more times for good measure.

Harold looks like he is having a coronary, so Grace rolls her eyes and leans over to fish a plastic bottle out of the nightstand.

\--

"You've been imagining this before," Grace tells him, low and warm in his ear and John has to bite down on the noise that comes out of his throat, because god, he has.

"Not… the two of you," John manages between gritted teeth.

Harold, sitting between his legs, is pushing a lubed-up finger against the tight ring of muscle agonizingly slow. John pushes down, trying to fuck himself on his hand, but Grace puts a hand on his shoulder, just the barest hint of touch.

"John, you will stay very still," Grace says, quiet but firm.

John freezes mid-movement, hips stilling under her eyes.

"Good boy," Grace says, her voice warm honey, and John's cock twitches at the sound.

"Take your time, we'll make this good for you, I promise,” Grace says, leaning down to kiss the curve of his jaw and curl around his nipples with her thumb, and John’s eyes nearly roll backwards into his head.

"So, you've been imagining this? Harold opening you up, taking you? Or other things, too? Sucking him off?"

Jesus. He never would have imagined that Grace would have such a filthy mouth in bed, and much less how much Harold would enjoy it: His pupils are wide and his skin is flushed feverishly, and there is a trembling to his hands where he is stretching John open, his other hand resting on John’s thigh, reassuring.

" I didn't mean,” John starts, except then Harold eases a second finger in and John has to force himself to hold still, grabbing fistfuls of the expensive sheets. "I didn't mean just Harold, I meant ... I imagined the two of you, separately."

Because he never let himself think about them together, like he had no right to intrude on their shared intimacy. Because it was something he never even dreamed he could be invited to.

He can see the realization written clearly in Grace's face, though, in the brief moment it takes her to process that. Then she laughs, leaning in so hair hair brushes over his upper body, tickling his skin.

“That’s okay, I’m pretty hot,” Grace says, and John lets go of the fabric to put a hand into her neck and pull her down to him, licking into her mouth.

Harold crooks his fingers and John makes a whimpering sound, leaning his sweaty forehead against Grace`s shoulder.

"John, is this... is this alright?" Harold asks, meticulously opening him up to the point beyond pain, and John can hear that his voice is wavering, stripped of all smugness.

It’s an intoxicating thought, that Harold is losing control because of John. That he did that to him.

"Perfect, except way too slow," John groans, hands clenching on the sheets. His cock is hard and leaking on his stomach, and even the touch of the soft sheets against his skin are too much, and not enough at all.

"Here, let me," Grace says and curls in next to him.

She presses herself against his side, her hand trailing down his stomach. She slicks the precome over his cock and works him in long, perfect strokes.

John gives a desperate whine and stops trying to hold himself still to push up against her grip. He looks at her, utterly helpless, and she speeds up the pace, brushing the palm of her hand over the head of his cock on every upstroke.  
Harold’s fingers are brushing his prostrate in short, irregular thrusts, and Grace keeps talking to him, talking him through it, her voice low and intimate next to his ear.

"Come on, John, you're doing really well, just let it go, you're perfect, you're so gorgeous like this,” she says, “It’s okay. We’ve got you,” and that tips him right over, his hips stuttering as he comes messily over her hand, his stomach.

Grace leans down to kiss him, smiling against the corner of his mouth, like he has done something extraordinary.

It's incredible, after, with Harold easing into him and fucking him in sweet, slow thrusts, now that John isn't single-mindedly looking for release, his own orgasm an afterthought.

Harold pushes into him, hitting his prostrate and stretching him with that aching, wonderful burn, his breath going in short huffs, his hands holding onto John’s hips.

Grace watches them, lazily stroking herself between her legs, propped up on her elbow. She comes before them, a little, breathless sigh, and buries her head in John's shoulder.

Harold doesn't take long, after, saying John's name as if there was not a single other word that he could remember, his hands tightening on John's hips as his orgasm hits him.

Grace is already drifting off when Harold’s pulls out, disposing of the condom with quick efficiency, producing a warm washcloth seemingly out of thin air.

He cleans John's stomach, and moves down to his thighs, drying him off with a white, fluffy towel before spreading a soft sheet over them.

John watches him through heavy-lidded eyes, utterly content and safe.

Harold turns off the light and climbs in next to John’s other side, his arm slung possessively around John’s waist. His hand finds Grace’s on top of John’s body, entwining their fingers.

John sleeps like the light was punched out of him for the first time in as long as he can remember.

\--

John wakes up to an empty pillow next to him, and for a terrifying moment he thinks that he is in his apartment, rain clattering against the windowpane, utterly alone on a Sunday morning, with no excuse to go to the library, to see them.

Then Grace yawns next to him, hair sticking up hilariously, and throws her arm over him.

"If you think about bailing, I'm onto you," she says, though the threat is dimmed by the way she looks all sleepy-eyed and adorable in one of Harold's pajama tops that she must have retrieved at some point during the night.

"I'm really, really not," John says, leaning in to stroke her face, run his thumb along her lower lip, amazed that he is allowed to.

"Hm," Grace says and leans in to kiss him good morning.

She pulls a face.

"Morning breath," she says, flopping down against him and looking like she will go back to sleep again.

"Good morning, John," Harold says.

He is carrying a tray with two cups of coffee, two glasses of orange juice and the newspaper.

Bear is at his heels, wagging his tail wildly, before jumping onto the bed to lick at John's face.

Grace stretches her arm and pets him awkwardly, not opening her eyes.

"There's toast and eggs - Benedict and scrambled, respectively, John, I wasn't sure of your preference so I prepared a few boiled eggs as well as bacon."

John blinks at him, utterly at a loss.

"I - thank you, Harold, that's... I really like scrambled eggs. And boiled, too." He can feel a smile spreading over his face. "When did you even have time to do all this?"

"He's a morning person," Grace says accusingly into her pillow.

Harold just smiles at her.

"I will be in the kitchen, if you wish to join me."

John looks at Harold: It seems rude to just stay in bed now that Harold made breakfast, but it's warm and comfortable and it's tempting to stay right where he is, stretched out luxuriously, Grace curled against him, comfortable, safe.

"There is no rush, John," Harold says, the corner of his mouth turning up, amused. "You're free to stay in bed for as long as you like, the breakfast will still be waiting for you when you get up."

John is choked with a terrible gratitude, so he just nods and leans back again.

"Love you," Grace calls from his side, somewhere beneath the covers.

She sticks her head out and smiles at Harold, who hands her one of the cups and kisses her mouth, sweet and sure.

"Have fun," Harold says, cryptically, and Grace nods and takes a large gulp of coffee.

 

\--

They drink their coffee and juice in comfortable silence before settling back into the mess of sheets. Grace lies close to him, her hands travelling over his chest, stroking over the scar tissue.

"Last night was amazing," John says and then winces because he sounds like a character in a movie.

Grace laughs good-naturedly.

"Harold and I discussed it a lot - you joining us, I mean."

She caresses his throat, moves down to run her thumb across his nipples, teasing them into hardness.

John shivers under her touch. He woke up satisfyingly sore from last night but the way she touches him, intent and curious and a bit greedy sends him straight back to aroused, the line of his morning erection visible through the thin sheets.

"We didn't know if you would want to."

Her hand is moving lower to his belly, stroking his sides, dipping below the sheet.

"There is nothing -- There is nothing else --"

There is nothing in the world that he could imagine wanting more, he wants to say, except her hand is cupping him now, fingers caressing him feather-light, and he loses his train of thought.

"On your back," Grace says, nudging him until he goes along.

He is spread out in front of her, the sheets pooling around his frame, and she takes a minute to admire the view. That's what Harold meant when he said "Have fun", John realizes, abruptly.

"Did Harold-" he starts, except Grace is bending down, putting her lips on his cock, and John loses all ability to speak.

She kisses the head, tongue darting out to tease the slit before she opens her mouth and sucks him down.

John grabs fistfuls of the sheets with both hands, moaning when his arousal hits him like a truck, coiling urgently in his stomach.

Grace hums around him and moves back up, pulling the hair away from her face. She has soft, nimble hands, but her grip is just firm enough for him to push into, to give him friction against the lush movement of his hips on the soft sheets.

"Harold and I have a bit of a Sunday morning ritual," Grace says casually, like she is talking about their weekly trip to the park.

John whines when she speeds up her movements, his head falling back against the pillow.

She leans forward to kiss his temple, her rhythm not faltering for a second, and it’s been too long since someone has touched him like this, simply focused on his pleasure, watching intently for every reaction, ever little hitch in his breathing.

She presses her thumb against the sensitive spot beneath the head of his cock and John’s eyelid’s flutter.

He’s too far gone by now to be coherent, mumbling her name and “Please” and “Yes” over and over.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to stop, I promise,” Grace says, except it doesn’t sound cheeky at all, and John manages to open his eyes and look at her: Kneeling next to him, stroking him steadily, a blush high on her cheeks, she meets his gaze with complete sincerity.

"Of course, usually I'm the one on my back, but I was willing to make an exception."

John thinks of the image of Harold between Grace's thighs:

The way Harold would move way too slow and draw it out until she was nearly desperate, squirming beneath him.

John can imagine it perfectly, too, Harold reading her reactions the same way he would run his fingers over the pages of one of the old books in the library, easing off every time he felt her coming close, making her groan in frustration.

Grace licks him, making him curse and gasp at how close he is already, and then climbs up his body to finish him off with her hand. John comes embarrassingly quick, and it takes him a while to catch his breath, after, as if he had been running for miles and miles and finally arrived.

When he feels relatively oriented, he turns to her, lying on her side beneath him and finishing his cup of coffee, pleased as punch.

"You and Harold must have great weekends off," John manages, voice hoarse from saying her name over and over.

Grace laughs like she does everything else: Unreservedly, and honest enough that it makes him feel that there isn’t room enough in his chest.

"What do you say: Shower, than breakfast?" Grace asks.

"Actually, I don't think we're done here quite yet," John says, and when she frowns at him he puts his hand between her legs and takes the cup out of her hands with the other, drinking her surprised “Oh" until she is rocking against him, breathless, his name like a sigh in her mouth.

\--

 

True to Harold’s word, breakfast is still waiting for them when they go into the kitchen.

Harold sits at the kitchen island, typing away on his laptop, apparently catching up on work even on the weekends.

Grace gives John a look that clearly communicates what she thinks of Harold’s early morning productivity, and John feels a smile spread over his face, big and happy and strange, as if the muscles in his face aren’t quite sure what to do.  
Grace walks over to Harold to kiss him, a brief peck on the lips.

John refills their mugs with coffee when he notices Harold looking at him.

It takes him a second to realize, but when he does, when he understands what Harold is saying - that this is his life now, if he wants it, that all along, it has never been about making a choice between one thing or the other at all -, he walks over to kiss Harold, too, warm and comfortable, and it feels like coming home.

 

\-- fin


End file.
